As promised in my previous post now I share the workout plan I did for my first marathon. This is not approved plan by any medical or sport organization. I did some research on workout plans for first-timers and I created my own version. There are some general rules that I identified in most of the plans:

Recommended duration is 6-8 months. My training was only 3 months, but I was already doing regular sports 3-4 times a week and had long experiance with half marathons. The duration for preparation will depend on your fitness level.

Long runs: These runs are the most important for first-timers. They should increase slowly until the day of the marathon. Every 7-10 days there should be one long run. They will help you develop the long distance mindset.

Intervals: There are different variations. The workout is usually 30-40 minutes. It includes sprint runs for short time with short breaks in between. These runs are important for training the heart and increasing its capacity. The idea is to keep the heart rate constantly high during the workout.

Tempo runs: These are 8-15 km runs where the pace should be relatively high constantly. The distance can be increased in the last weeks.

Easy runs: The pace is lower and distance can vary. They are important for keeping the body and mind fit but do not make any stress.

Usual plans include 3-6 trainings per week. This was also different for me. Initially I planed about 5 trainings per week, but the reality was a bit different as you can see in my calendar below.

Les mills courses

Since I am a big fan of the Les mills program I decided to combine my running plan with different courses. I included:

Body pump: 60 minutes strength workout with low weights and high number of reps.

The exact plan

Below is the exact plan I did for my first marathon. It is a mixture of running workouts, les mills courses, few functional strength body weight workouts in the gym and few handball trainings. I got also sick with fiber for one week, but luckily I got back fit fast and was able to continue training with only few days break.

It was in 2006 or 2007, when I started running. I still remember my first 500 meters at the river Vardar in Skopje during the hot summer evenings. After 500 meters I had to walk and then run 4-500 meters more. And that was it. At that time, I though I will never be run more than few kilometers in my life. But I reached 5 kilometers already the next year. And that was my goal, to keep that distance and run regularly to feel fit.

But then at the end of summer 2013, I increased my distance. First to 7, to 10, and then about 15 kilometers. It was an amazing experience. So I set up a goal to run a half-marathon. And I did it in the spring of 2014. I though that it was the longest distance that my body can handle on a single run. I was still sure that I can not finish a marathon in my life. Always thought that it was a crazy idea. But the half-marathons continued, and they are so much fun. I completed so far 12 races. I even reached a quite good pace this year in Madrid (1 hour 33 minutes).

And then I needed a bigger challenge. It came in my mind that I should attempt the marathon… Something I never thought I can do even though I ran regularly for so many years. So, in the spring this year I decided and registered for the authentic marathon from Marathon to Athens. I just said, I should at least try.

Training

I will publish soon my training plan, that I did for the marathon in a new post. This may help some people how to organize their training, but keep in mind that you should always listen to your body. Plans are there to guide you and motivate you, but if your body says you should take a day rest then do.

As I am quite fit in the last 2-3 years, I decided to start official training 3 months before the race. Even though for first time runners most of the recommendations are that you should start at least 5-6 months in advance. But as I said, as already fit, I think three months was enough for my goal. In the last 2 year I am doing regularly sports 3 to 5 times a week. I combine training in the gym with light weights, doing some functional courses, HIIT training, and at least two times cardio training per week.

Nutrition

I did not follow any special program. Generally, I always tried to fill my carbs before the long runs that I did once a week usually on Sundays. I also tried to eat at least 100 g of proteins per day (about 1.3 times per kg weight). In the last 10 days before the race, I tried to eat as much as possible.

The event

As this race follows the original marathon trace, it is a huge event. They have six different races during the four days and a total of 50 000 runners and more than 3 000 volunteers. The marathon starts in the town of Marathon, and finishes at the ancient Panathenaic stadium in Athens. The race starts at 9 am. There is an organized transport from Athens early in the morning. I stood up at 4:15 am and took the bus at 6 am. In Marathon, we arrived one hour later.

The organization was quite good. Everything was well described in the magazine that the organizer sent about two weeks in advance. I arrived in Athens on the 8th November. The race was on the 11th, and I left on the 12th. Nice thing from the organizer was that for all these days I had a free public transportation. At the airport they had a pick up point for the public transportation cards.

At the start point there ware markings for everything, such as dropping personal bags, toilets, starting sections, etc. During the race there ware refreshment stations at every 2.5 km. The trace is relatively flat but there are few hilly sections up and down. It is also quite monotone, so it may get boring at some parts. It goes through typical Greek semi-rural area until the entrance of Athens. At the start of the race we even had a herd of sheep running next to us on the street until they could control them.

I had mostly good run. No critical or any painful moments. Last 5-6 km however were difficult. I decreased my pace and two times I did small walking break of 1-2 minutes and one stretching break for my legs. In the first 20 km I kept my pace at 5 minutes per kilometer, and then I decreased to about 6 minutes per kilometer. My final time was 3 hours, 53 minutes and 27 seconds. I really happy I could finish my first marathon at all and even under 4 hours.

Filming the run

Before the marathon, I was checking some videos of people running at this event, as I wanted to get some impressions on the track and the atmosphere. There were few that I found but did not find one that covers the complete track. So, I decided to film my experience and share it. Here is the compressed video that I made with GoPro 5 Black hanged on my head.

I am happy that my Software Campus project has officially started. The preparation time took more than a year, starting from idea brain-storming, to application phase, to official project plan, dealing with Fraunhofer internal workflows, a lot of administration, and now the Kick-off. We also have a project website now!

However, as I was told, the real challenges start now! Looking forward 😉

]]>https://piskachev.com/?feed=rss2&p=3420ECOOP/ISSTA 2018 in Amsterdamhttps://piskachev.com/?p=296
https://piskachev.com/?p=296#respondThu, 23 Aug 2018 08:14:51 +0000https://piskachev.com/?p=296[…]]]>The conferences ECOOP, ISSTA and Curry On, this year were co-located in Amsterdam in the Mövenpick Hotel next to Amsterdam Centraal. It was a great opportunity for me to meet many people from the static analysis community. And of course have fun 🙂

As there were many events in paralel during 7 days, it was difficult to select what to visit. There were 3 conferences, some with parallel tracks, doctoral symposium, poster session, workshops, hackathon and summer school. At the doctoral symposium and the poster session I presented my work. I also attended most of the summer school. From the rest, I tried to cover some presentations that seemed interesting.

Main research tracks

The main conference tracks are always the highlights. ISSTA had some great presentations from research perspective. Especially, I liked the Mobile session.

Curry on had also nice talks, but also many tracks in parallel, so it was very difficult to decide what to listen. These talks were also more entertaining as they involve both the industry and academia.

Doctoral Symposium

The doctoral symposium was a joint event of ISSTA and ECOOP. It was a full day event, where 9 students presented their research. There was also an academic panel that gave valuable feedback to the presentations. Two of the three panelists, Mauro Pezze and Cindy Rubio-Gonzalez, gave talks on relevant experiences for doctoral students. This was very positive experience for me.

Poster Session

This was a great event organized by Lisa Nguyen Quang Do. It was very well visited event in a nice atmosphere with drinks and finger food. I talked to many people about my poster which was the work that was earlier presented at the doctoral symposium. It was good practice to see how othere people understand my research when I had just few minutes to explain it.

Summer School

This was a free event for selected master and junior doctoral students. It lasted for 6 days during the conferences. Each day there was a one or two 2-hour lecture from different expert in computer science topics.The first lecture was on the Sunday before the starte of all other events. It was a lecture on Haskall by Simon Peyton Jones during the final game of the world cup in foodball between France and Protugal. As I did not expect, all students showed up to the lecture and missed the game. The lecture was very entertaining, so I do not regret for missing the football 🙂

Some of the other lectures were very basic for me, but as the event targeted also a master level students I can understand why it was like that.

Additionally, from the second to the fourth day, each morning at 8 am, the students had a breakfast with different experienced researcher. Two to three students were allocated to one researcher. This was a great opportunity to meet and talk to the experts in different areas.

SOAP Workshop

State Of the Art in Program analysis workshop was a one day event co-chaired by Ben Hermann and Omer Tripp. I attended the full program as it had very interesting talks, e.g. Michael Pradel gave a great invited talk on his research in bugs detection using machine learning.

Social evenings

During the conferences, there were several social events in the evenings. The Curry On party was on the Monday at the fancy location Tobacco Theater in the center of Amsterdam. The next day was the ISSTA Banquet at Zaalverhuur Pakhuis de Zwijger. On the Wednesday was the poster session. Right after the poster session, there was a networking event organized by Google for invited guests only at a great location with a nice view of the city. On the Thursday, Uber hosted another event at their fancy offices in Amsterdam. And finally, the ECOOP Banquet was on the Friday at De Koninklijke Industrieele Groote Club which was also my favourite social event.

Other tracks I missed

The difficult part at the event was that there were too many presentations happening in parallel and one had to decide what to attend. Two events I wanted to attend but it was not possible becasue of the overlap were the ML4PL workshop and the Panathon.

]]>https://piskachev.com/?feed=rss2&p=2960Rock ‘n’ Roll in Madridhttps://piskachev.com/?p=310
https://piskachev.com/?p=310#respondTue, 31 Jul 2018 11:25:46 +0000https://piskachev.com/?p=310[…]]]>This year I rocked my best time on half marathon. My new personal best is now 1 hour 33 minutes and 48 seconds. This happened in Madrid at the 41. edition of the official city run branded under the Rock ‘n’ Roll series.

The Rock ‘n’ Roll series are quite popular in the USA, but they have now few events in Europe, including Madrid, Lisbon and Dublin. I attended this event for the first time and the organization was excellent. The atmosphere in Madrid was great with many volunteers, supporters and lots of rock music along the track.

The result as usual was unexpected. I started my preparations only 5 weeks before the run and did 2 to 3 running sessions per week. The other days in the week I was mostly in the gym doing functional training, HIIT or cardio courses. I had on average 1 day of rest in the week. The race was as always on Sunday and this time starting at 9 am. The weather was very sunny but luckily in the morning the temperature was cool. Later, it became warm, about 20 degrees, but that was at the end of the race. I started the race reserved but at the 4th kilometer I realized I can speed up and keep the pace. At this race I did not have to break the wall because I was feeling powerful till the finish which was next to the famous Retiro Park.

It was a great run in a beautiful city. Looking forward to my runs in Autumn!

I am happy to share that my project has been accepted in the Software Campus program. The program offers Master and PhD students to lead their own research project in cooperation with one industry partner. The project volume is up to 100 K € for 6 to 18 months. My project SecuCheck is expected to start in November 2018 and last for 14 months. Software AG will be my industry partner. The goal is to develop an IDE tool that will help developers to effectivelly use static analysis for detecting security vulnerabilities on the code they are currently working on. The tool will be evaluated via user study in cooperation with Software AG.

For students of Paderborn University: If you are interested to work at Fraunhofer IEM and on this project under my supervision, please contact me.

Your skills:

Strong Java programming skills

Strong research interest in static code analysis and familiarity with Soot framework

Attendance of DECA lecture is a plus

Optional: experience with domain specific languages (xText)

Optional: Plug-in development for IntelliJ IDE

Team spirit and proactive personality

Fluent in English and/or German

Your benefits:

Work on a research project that will develop a tool for the industry

Flexible working hours: 45 up to 75 hours per month

Paid holiday hours

Experience with user study

Get in contact with possible future employer (Fraunhofer IEM or Software AG)

]]>https://piskachev.com/?feed=rss2&p=2940Cycling in Schleswig-Holsteinhttps://piskachev.com/?p=255
https://piskachev.com/?p=255#respondMon, 07 May 2018 12:24:21 +0000https://piskachev.com/?p=255[…]]]>This was the first bike trip in 2018. It was a small one but a good one to start the season. This time, I biked together with my friend Elena, who did her first bike tour over few days. It was a longer weekend in Germany and the perfect opportunity to bike. We chose to explore the region of Schleswig-Holstein in the north of Germany. It is generaly flat and the bike infrastracture is good. We met in Flensburg, a city on the border with Denmark, and the goal was to reach Lübeck on the fouth day. On average, we planned 40 km per day. The route that we planned is shown on the map.

Although we planned 4 days of biking with distance of around 160 km, we did not bike the last day from Plön to Lübeck, becasue the wather was very bed (extreme wind and temperature of 5 degrees, including some rain). Instead, we took the train and spent few walking hours in Lübeck for sightseeing. Here are the key facts

Day 1: Flensburg to Ulsnis

I started the trip one day earlier by taking the train from Paderborn to Flensburg. I arrived at midnight and went to the Flensburg Hostel.

In the morning, I met Elena at the train station and we went to the city to explore the main street and the port. The city is very small. Here are few photos.

Around mid-day, we started our biking to Ulsnis. The weather was cloudy and a bit rainy in the beginning. But later it bacame nice and sunny. The way was most of the time next to the street on the bike path. We did one break in Satrup with coffee and some snacks. Around 4 pm we arrived in Ulsnis where we stayed at Johanna and Richard’s 200 years old house. This was my first Warmshowers experience as a guest. And it was extremely positive. Johanna and Richard provided us with a bed and plenty of food. Their house was also nice experience. Everything was antique and well arranged. We had nice chats and they showed us the church where their village community gathers. Ulsnis is quite rural but it has very nice nature around. It is located next to the Schlei Fjord.

Day 2: Ulsnis to Kiel

The next morning, we had a nice breakfast and were ready to go, when we realized that the front wheel of Elena’s bike lost the air. So we had to change the tire. I had some tools with me, but I forgot my travel pump in Paderborn. Luckily, Richard had one and he also helped with some better tools. Then, we started the biking. Initially, we plannned around 50 km this day which was the record for Elena, but at the end we did almost 60 km becasue we missed the way at some point. At Brodersby we took the ferry to cross the Fjord, for which we had to pay few euros. There is also a bridge north of Ulsnis, but we wanted the shorter way. Our break was in Eckernförde, which is a nice touristic town at the Ostsee (East sea). We walked in the town and had a nice coffee at the beach.

After Eckernförde, we followed the bike way next to the Ostsee which was very nice. Then, there was a point where we decided to take the direct way to Kiel and not to go along the Ostsee becasue it was 10 km longer. We were also told later that that way is not that beautiful and the sea is not really visible along the way for most of the time. So, we took a really nice direct bike way to Kiel. But at some point we realized that we went off from the official bike way and we end up in Holtsee. The whole way was actually really nice on small roads around the fields and some woods with very few cars. From Holtsee we decided to get somehow to the artificial canal that connects the Ostsee and Nordsee and is the busiest one in the world. We reached Landwehr and crossed the canal with the free ferry.The canal was huge. The weather became cloudy and colder. Even though it was Sunday when the canal is less busy, we still saw few big boats. We followed the canal on the south side until Sushdorf. From there we entered Kiel.

In Kiel, we arrived around 4:30 pm. We wend directly to a sport bar and watched the second quarter final handball game between Vardar and Kiel. They played in Skopje. Vardar lost but still qualifed to the final 4 becasue of the first game. It was a nice feeling to support Vardar against Kiel in Kiel 🙂

After the game, we went to our hosts Gini and Flo from Warmshowers. It was another nice Warmshowers experience. They gave us some nice biking tips for the region.

Day 3: Kiel to Plön

As our Warmshowers host recommended, we wend first in the center of Kiel to explore the city. From the main train station which is at the port, we took the boat until Mönkeberg. The idea was to see Kiel from the wather. And it was worth it! With that we also avoided biking through the city as it is a bigger city and more difficult to orient. So, we started our biking from Mönkeberg. From there we headed south to reach the river Schwentine. We found the nice bike way along the river which we followed until Raisdorf. It was very nice way!

At Raisdorf, we took the bike way next to the bigger road until Preetz. We had our break in Preetz, which is a nice little town. From there, we took the dirrect way to Rathjensdorf. The road was through the fields and quite rural. It was also quite hilly. In Rathjensdorf, we found our guest house that we booked via Airbnb. But nobody was there. We tried to call the owner but no answer. Then we asked the neighbour who told us that they usually open from 5 pm. So, we went to Plön. We walked and had nice food. Here is one view on the main street in Plön.

Later, we returned to Rathjensdorf and were able to check-in in the house.

Day 4: Plön to Lübeck

The last day, we only biked from Rathjensdorf to Plön (4 km). The weather was really bad so we decided to take the train to Lübeck.
You can check more photos from this trip on my Instagram.

]]>https://piskachev.com/?feed=rss2&p=2550Paderborner Technology Meetuphttps://piskachev.com/?p=230
https://piskachev.com/?p=230#respondSat, 10 Feb 2018 23:16:57 +0000https://piskachev.com/?p=230[…]]]>I attended the 2nd PTM meeting in Paderborn which is organized by three students who are also part of the Microsoft Student Partner network. This Meetup was hosted at the AStA office in the center of the city which is actually difficult to find.

There were four talks, from which three were related to Microsoft technologies and given by the three organizers and one guest talk on the programming language Kotlin. The following is a photo of the opening by the organizers.

The talk on Kotlin given by Christian Brüggemann was very interesting. Christian showed many code examples of how Kotlin improves some of the constructs in Java. Since Kotlin is hosted on the JVM, it is fully compatible with Java. From my first impression, I find Kotlin as a language between Java and Scala, where Scala is more to the functional end of the spectrum and Java to the procedural end.

The talks at the event were more informative and with general messages. We need to take the fact that they were given by students. The people were mostly young developers and students. The atmosphere was relaxed and friendly.

]]>https://piskachev.com/?feed=rss2&p=2300FOSDEM 2018https://piskachev.com/?p=215
https://piskachev.com/?p=215#respondSat, 10 Feb 2018 22:13:41 +0000https://piskachev.com/?p=215[…]]]>This year, I attended the FOSDEM conference on the 3rd and 4th February in Brussels. The name stands for Free and Open Source Software Developers’ European Meeting. It is an yearly event organized by volunteers and supported via sponsorship, but aggressive marketing is not allowed. Here are few facts about this conference:

after one OSDEM event in 2000, the first FOSDEM was in 2001

located at the ULB campus in Brussels (Free University of Brussels)

678 talks at this year edition

about 8000+ participants

the participation is free of charge

I liked the atmosphere at this event. The people are very friendly and relaxed. There are different types of talks, like keynotes, tutorials, lightning talks, developers meetings, certification exams, etc. There are many parallel tracks in different rooms across the university. It is actually quite difficult to choose what to attend because of the many options. There are also few apps that the participants can use to manage the whole schedule. I used the FOSDEM Companion to mark the talks that I like and manage myself at the venue. It was smart that before the conference I took the time to go through the program and select the talks that interest me.

Because it is very crowded, the seats in the rooms are limited, especially when the topics are catchy. Once the seats are full, no more people are allowed to get inside. So, it is smart to make your own schedule strategically, and leave enough time (arrive at least 5-10 minutes earlier) to get to the room for your next talk in order to ensure your spot. From my experience, it is also better if you stay in the same room or building for few talks. Changing the rooms all the time is time consuming and higher probability that you will not get a spot. For lunch and refreshment breaks you should also consider that at most of the places at the campus you need to queue for at least 15 minutes.

Regarding the topics of the talks they are all related to free and/or open source software. It was very broad and everyone can find something interesting. They are also developer oriented, so more technically focused and not research centered. All talks are recorded, live streamed and online available.

In the two days, I attended 16 talks. My highlight were the few talks at the source code analysis track on the second day. Particularly Jules Villard, a developer at Facebook, gave a nice talk on Infer. From the other talks, a nice talk was given by Grzegorz Bizon, a developer at GitLab, on the topic of integration testing framework.

There were also some stands at the campus showing different projects. A popular part was the one with the IoT topics. Also, there was a job corner without aggressive recruiting.

All in all, it was an interesting event for meeting new people and listening what is new in the tech world.

]]>https://piskachev.com/?feed=rss2&p=2150Rhine and Mosel cycling in 3 dayshttps://piskachev.com/?p=196
Sun, 28 Jan 2018 15:37:16 +0000http://piskachev.com/?p=196[…]]]>In June 2017, during a longer weekend, I planned this cycling tour. It was a great experience. On this tour, I was cycling together with Matthias.

Duration: 3 days

Start: Bonn

End: Trier

Distance: 250 km

Accommodation: Airbnb

Overnight in 3 cities: Koblenz, Pünderich, Trier

Bike: Bulls Cross Pulsar

Tracking: TomTom Runner 2 watch

Few words on the preparation. I have not prepare too much for this short tour. My bike is always ready 🙂 The goal was to cycle along the river Rhine and then the river Mosel, so the route plan was fixed. The only decision to be made was where to make the breaks for overnight. Koblenz and Trier as bigger cities were nice destinations that I wanted to visit, so for the first and third nights it was easy to decide. For the second night, which was the way along the Mosel river, the decision was made from the accommodation that I found, and that was in Püderlich. This town was also somewhere in the middle between Koblenz and Trier.

Day 1: Bonn to Koblenz

Distance: 70 km

Duration: 5 hours

Route: Bonn – along Rhine river – Koblenz

Accommodation: Airbnb

In the morning, we took the very early train from Paderborn to Bonn. From Bonn, we started cycling around 10 am. The weather was sunny and warm. In Bonn, we reached the river and followed the bike ways along the river in the direction of Koblenz. We did not entered any towns or villages on the way, except those that are directly on the river and the bike ways were passing through. We did one lunch break and few small breaks. Here how the bike ways look like:

Before Koblenz, we left the river and headed to the flat where we had our accommodation. Therefore, I had to use the navigation with my phone. Once arrived, we took shower and small break. Since it was June, the daylight was still there until 10:30 pm. We went to the to check out the city. It was more cloudy then sunny, but it was nice for walking. The city center is small, so in 1 hour walk we saw the main sights. We did not went to the castle, because it was going to close soon. But here is how does it look from the other side of the river where the city center is.

We had a dinner in a nice Thai restaurant called Suvarnabhumi.

Day 2: Koblenz to Püderlich

We started around 9 am from Koblenz. Our accommodation was near the Mosel river, so we found the way easily. For those that do not know, Mosel is entering in Rhine in the center of Koblenz. It is a famous touristic spot where both rivers meet.

After short cycling along the Mosel, we entered the first town Winningen. It is very cute place. Here is the center of the town:

We looked for a bakery there. There were two, but the choice was not satisfactory, so we continued cycling and just after the town we went to a market with bakery. We had our breakfast there.

The way along the Mosal river was amazing. I really enjoyed the views around. It is also quite touristic region. There are many small cute villages, many cyclists, and plenty of camping places. And of course there are many vineyards on the sides of the river.

But, there was one problem. Matthias’ bike was not good. So around the half way we realized that the back wheel was broken. We were not sure what to do. Before we wanted to cancel the tour, we decided to look for some bike repair places. Although there are many bike there, it was not easy to find a place for bike repairs. The first one we found, the guy said he had too many bikes and he can’t work on the bike the same day. Then, he advised to check the next town. We reached Klotten. There was a bikers hotel with some repair shop, but they did not work on that day. They said we should try in Cochen, the next town, which is one of the biggest there. So it was our last try before canceling the tour. In Cochen, we found one repair, but they were also full. We went to another one, and the guy was nice and wanted to help. But the damage was big and the bike was not a standard one. We waited for him to check for a new wheel. After an hour, he couldnt find. But he offered, a used bike for a good price. Matthias liked it, so we made a deal. We left the broken bike there and finally we continued. Cochem is by the way a bigger town and quite touristy. There is also one castle:

After Cochem, we still had almost half way to Pünderlich. But now we were faster. There were few other cute towns on the way, but we did not enter. Here is one of them:

Before Pünderlich we entered a bigger market to get some dinner. We knew that in Pünderlich, there is not many options. The accommodation was one of the best, that I have ever had with airbnb. The house way very nice and high tech. And the host had organized everything perfectly. Moreover, it is cheap. Highly recommended!

Day 3: Püderlich to Trier

Distance: 120 km

Duration: 7 hours

Route: Pünderlich – Traben-Trarbach – Trier – Trierweiler

Accommodation: Airbnb

This was the longest cycling day, I had so far. We cycled 120 km in the whole day. First, the way from Pünderlich to Trier was longer than I thought. We had to follow the river all the time, so we could not make some shortcuts as I thought. The river is very curvy and I thought there are few shortcuts, but then I realized those shortcuts are over the hills. Also our accommodation was not in the Trier, but a small place Trierweiler about 10 km from Trier up the very high hill.

It was a big challenge, but we really enjoyed the whole day. We started the day as usual around 9 am. Then, we made a breakfast break in Traben-Trarbach, which is another very nice town. We had a long way to Trier, passing by many nice towns. Here is one of the views along the river:

In Trier we arrived and went directly to check out the town. We did not want to go to our accommodation because it was not easy to get there. So, we spend around 2 hours in the city.

After a döner-dinner, we went to our accommodation. It was a very difficult way up to the hill through the forest. Half of the way we had to walk. But, we made it. The next morning, it was very fast way down the hill until Trier from where we took the train back to Cologne and then to Paderbon.